Father of Modern Nature Documentary Invited to Cinema Verite David Attenborough in Iran

President of the Documentary and Experimental Film Centre (DEFC), Mohammadmehdi Tabatabaeinejad, has answered to the plea made by a group of Iranian wild life documentary makers by preparing to invite David Attenborough to be a special guest at the 10th edition of Iran International Documentary Film Festival, Cinema Verite and share his experiences with his fellow Iranian filmmakers.Attenborough was dissatisfied with the format of shows such as these, which often brought animals out of their natural habitats and into the distressing environment of a television studio. Seeking to break with this unfortunate tradition, in 1954 Attenborough launched a series titled Zoo Quest. The program filmed animals not only in captivity, but also in the wild, with the film crews traveling far and wide to capture images of the animals. With its on-location yet respectfully distant approach to filming wildlife, Zoo Quest established what are now the general standards for nature documentaries. Attenborough wrote and produce TV series as a freelancer and quickly established himself with a string of successful programs, including Eastwards with Attenborough (1973), which featured an anthropological study of Indonesia, and The Tribal Eye (1975), which examined tribal art throughout the world. But Attenborough’s greatest success would come in 1976, when his program Life on Earth first aired. A 96-episode examination of the role of evolution in nature, the show took Attenborough and his crews around the globe, using cutting-edge filming techniques to bring wildlife into homes worldwide, gaining an estimated viewing audience of more than 500 million.The success of Life on Earth made David Attenborough a household name and, in the decades that followed, allowed him to write, produce and host countless other series, including The Trials of Life (1990), which focused on animal development and behavior; The Private Life of Plants (1995), which used time-lapse photography to explore the botanical world; Attenborough in Paradise (1996), about his personal-favorite animals, birds of paradise; and the 10-part series The Life of Birds (1998), for which he won a Peabody Award. He has also narrated numerous other programs, including the BBC’s Wildlife on One, which ran for 250 episodes from 1977 to 2005, and the 2006 series Planet Earth, the biggest wildlife documentary ever made and the first show to air in HD on the BBC.If happens, his presence at the Cinema Verite would provide the talented Iranian wild life filmmakers and photographers with the unique opportunity of attending his masterclasses.